“Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God; arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord God, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the holy vessels of God, into the house that is to be built to the name of the Lord.”– 1 Chronicles 22:19 (KJV)
We must esteem the person of Christ, but that doesn’t bring His presence. We need to go a step further to actually seek Him.

To seek means;

1. To attempt or desire to obtain or achieve something

2. To ask for something from someone

3. To search for and find something or someone

4. To go to a place
To seek the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to love Him enough and value him enough and our desire for Him should drive us to obtain Him. We should want him badly enough to ask for His presence. We should want Him badly enough to go out searching for Him and desire Him so much that if we can’t get His presence with us, that we go to where His presence is.
We need to set our hearts and also our souls to seek the Lord. We need to do it, nobody is going to do this for us and it’s not something that just happens.

The little but highly significant sacrifices are what built the relationship we want to have. Because we value Him enough to want Him in our lives, we set our hearts to be with Him and we begin, bit by bit, to carve a way for Him into our lives. It’s not always anything major that brings us close, we don’t have to jump in front of a bus for Him and its the little things we do… Spending time talking, getting to know each other, thinking about each other, praying, spending time with each other. These are the things that show how important the other person is to you… What you were willing to give up for these seemingly insignificant things.

The verse above urges us to seek the Lord with our heart AND soul but it doesn’t stop there. We are told afterwards to get up and go to where he is, get involved in what he’s doing. If you want to spend time with someone and that person is always busy, the easiest way to be with the person is to help them do what they are doing.

When my mum is doing laundry or cooking and i want to spend time with her, I go and help her and in the process of working together, we can talk and get things done. It would be foolishness for me to say, “mummy stop what you’re doing and come and spend time with me.”

If you value the presence of the Lord and really want to be with him, you will seek him with your heart and soul by;

“And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.”Exodus 33:15 (KJV)
Gods presence is the most important thing for our lives. We need to understand how important the presence of God is for us. When we do so, we will be able to give up anything for His presence. What we are willing to give up for something shows how important that thing is to us.

When the person of Christ becomes the most important person in our lives then nothing will be too great a cost for us, His opinion would become all that matters to us, and nothing else would be able to phase us.

Why is the presence of God that important to some people and it isn’t to others? It’s because of the relationship the person has with Christ.

David was willing to give up the kingdom just to save his relationship with God but Saul was willing to give up his relationship with God to keep what he had. This is an easy mistake to make when you forget that all you have actually comes from the person you are giving up.

1. Learn to value people more than things.

2. Make Jesus the most important person in your life and not just one of the important people.

Jesus is a person and how much we value Him will be tested and it will be seen in what we are willing to give up for Him and what we are willing to place before Him.

I know it’s kind of late but I still wanted you to know I wish you all the best in this new year.

I can’t believe 2016 is already over! I almost thought it’d never end, with all the heart ache rolercosters and broken dream caracels, it was like an amusement park of pain.

Honestly, I’d rather not dwell on the past because I know 2017 has greater things in store for me. I hope you’re as excited about it as I am because I can’t get over that fact that it’s going to be such a great year. This year I plan to publish another book, start up my own business and settle down in life.

I know you might say I’m too young, that’s what my mama says, but I don’t think there’s ever a time too young to be great.

I can’t help but indeed, when you were my age, what’s was life like for you? I mean, with big decisions like where to live, what to do, who to give your heart to? How did you make such decisions when you were my age?

I know you moved away from your original country of dwelling, you left the job you’d done for years, and you divorced the man you gave your heart to all in one day, how on earth were you able to make such a decision when I’m struggling to even decide on what colour my hair should be this year?!

Im liking the blonde though still.

But yeah, it’s only been like 5 days and I find I’m being faces with major life changing decisions and isn’t help but wonder whether I’m making the right choices for my life. I get scared that I might make the wrong ones and although your story gives me hope that even if I end up where I don’t want to be, I can always turn around, I fear I’m not as strong as you are, I fear I may not be able to make the decisions you’ve made.

I pray about it all the time because the one thing that scares the gajeebers out of me is ending up regretting my decisions, and that’s one thing I don’t want to ever have to do in the year 2017.

“Say unto them, Whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, that goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord.”

– Leviticus 22:3

Your value for something is shown by how much you are willing to pay for it.

If you say you want the presence of God and you can’t give up something you hold dear to get it, then you don’t want Him badly enough.

When you begin to desire Him above all else, it will become easy to let go of everything just to be with Him. Nothing will be too big a price.

If you’re struggling to let go of anything for God, pray for a desire, a drawing, a longing for God and the more you desire Him, the less significant everything else will become to you in relation to his presence.